Welcome to Management Consulted. I'm Jenny Rae, the Managing Director, and
today our key focus is on a question that I would get all the time when I was at Bain --
what is actually included in a consulting project? Today I'm gonna break it down
into three key parts -- the scope of a project and how that's determined,
the team that works on a project, and the duration of the types of projects that
you'll find in consulting. So first of all, the scope and how its determined.
The scope of a consulting project is actually determined in the sales process.
So a partner when they're engaging with the client in determining what problem
is core to be solved, they'll to decide usually on the fixed
term of the engagement, as well as the number of people that will work on it,
and also the amount of the problem that will be able to be solved in that period of time.
Usually it comes down to some combination of budget and urgency for
the client, but generally that's how the scope is determined. How long should it take,
how many people should we staff on the project? Second, there are the way
that teams are constructed for a consulting project determine what kind
of project it is and how it unfolds. Usually, for strategy firms, there's one
partner who's responsible for selling the project to the organization and
delivering the final deliverables. The second is the manager who's responsible
for determining what happens internally on their team, as well as externally with
a client. And finally, there are two post-MBA analysts and two pre-mba analysts.
Again, there might be some flexibility depending on the firm and the positions
that they have, but for the most part, there are about four people that do the
real core work on the project -- one person that manages them and one person that
manages the primary relationship with a client. The key focus when you're
thinking about doing consulting cases and you're thinking about breaking down
the problem into multiple different areas of focus, is the same way that a
manager would think about the beginning of their case. Usually each one of those
areas would map to a work stream for one of the four analysts that work for the manager.
So, that gives you some real world example of how what you're doing
in cases is actually applied inside the firm. Finally, there's the duration of the
consulting project. Consulting projects come in a few different flavors --
the first are private equity cases. These are usually the shortest, the heaviest hitting,
and the most sleepless cases. They take usually two to four weeks most
often on the two-week level. They run from the moment that you start until the
moment that you end. The focus is usually in the due diligence process,
when you're working for a private equity company. Sometimes, private equity cases
will come in rapid succession so you'll do either multiple cases looking at
different targets for the same firm, or multiple cases that are for different
firms all across multiple different industries. The second type of cases are
strategy cases they're usually three to six months -- often very expensive for the
client -- so the clients usually limit the core duration of the project.
The duration is usually determined and put under pressure in order to deliver the
maximum amount of value in the shortest amount of time. So again, three to six
months for most strategy projects. Most implementation projects, which would have
follow-on to strategy projects, take anywhere between six and eighteen months.
They're generally longer in nature because the goal is to actually put into
place what was recommended in the strategy phase, and also to measure
what's happening on the ground. So, for example, you may go through the process
of piloting something that was recommended in the strategy phase,
taking the insights from the pilot and then actually going forward and making
changes, and doing the final implementation or rollout. The fourth type of case is a
technology case. Technology cases can take anywhere between six and twenty-four months,
usually edging toward the longer end of that. The core focus of a technology case is
not only to determine what type of technology is needed, but also,
the build of the technology and the implementation of the technology. So there are usually
three key phases: technology strategy, technology building, and technology implementation.
That's why those cases extend for such a long period of time.
So hopefully today you've gotten good insight into what happens on a
consulting project in terms of scope, who's actually on the team,
and what you'll be doing in terms of duration. Thanks for joining us.
If you have more questions visit us at managementconsulted.com.
We look forward to seeing you in a future video.